This webzine is online since August 2010 and is completely dedicated to Electronic Music (EM) identified as the Berlin School style and its derived. You will find interviews but mostly reviews of ambient, sequenced and symphonic EM with a glimpse on other related genres. You have questions or want your music to be reviewed? Please read the 123 FAQ section attentively. Bear in mind the main purpose of this Blog. So welcome in and I hope it will guide you into the wonderful world of EM.

jeudi 30 janvier 2014

“This quite fascinating sonic experience is for fans of electro acoustic ambiences where the winds catapult the hostile silences as the invisible roaring”

1 Yli Corpein Huocawat 8:002 Läpi Soiden Waeltawat 8:353 Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus 8:234 Mustan Mullan Alle Maatumahan 8:355 Pimeys On Ninquin Walkeus / Puuxi Tullut 10:22Aural Hypnox / Stellar Mansion's Series (CD 43:56) ***½ (Experimental electro-acoustic music)Do you like the strange? You will doubtless going to like “Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus” from Halo Manash, or still Anti Ittna Haapapuro, a Finnish artist who specializes in the universe of the spiritual percussions and the electro acoustic sound effects. “Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus” is an occult album which has passed under the radar during the French tour of Halo Manash in January 2009. The fact that it had been distributed in only 29 copies, all signed, helps to make of it an obscure object of desire among the fans of the psybient electro acoustic genre and a very silent work at the marketing level. The label Aural Hypnox has decided to reedit “Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus” under the banner of its Stellar Mansion' Series division in only 444 copies and 44 others offered in a wooden casket. A completely justifiable initiative because this album of Halo Manash inhales these splendid ambiospherical elements where the Earth, its celestial bodies and its secrets align themselves for a strange and inexplicable pleasure of the sense.A long lamentation of a gong opens the sonic forest of "Yli Corpein Huocawat". Straight out, the Finnish sound sculptor immerses us of his sound painting with scattered beatings, gongs with resonant voices, shimmering winds and odd cracklings which are covered by long sighs of mammoth having a cold. The noises and the resonances forge a surrealist ambience where a prehistoric fauna seems dominated by a Tibetan religion. And so takes place the 5 verses of “Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus”. "Läpi Soiden Waeltawat" is more musical, even lyrical, with a fascinating voice which caresses the hummings of gongs. The ambience reminds me the theatrical music of Jean Pierre Thanès. The lamentations of the Bone Flute are simply striking. Their breezes, at both times guttural and celestial, are a key element in this album inspired of the boreal and ancestral forests. The rhythms are slow. They are rather movements of ambiences which move forward by the strength of the gongs and the percussions scattered in an audio work which allies mystery and drama, as in "Mustan Mullan Alle Maatumahan" which, following the very quiet and idle "Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus", gives the impression of preparing tribes for a war. "Pimeys On Ninquin Walkeus / Puuxi Tullut" ends “Caickuwi Cauwas Walkeus” by a strong ambiospherical presence where gongs, as the winds, are covering the quietude of a growing threat. Doubtless the most powerful track of an album which will rekindle more the nightmares, by its occult strength, than paradisiacal dreams. This is for fans of electro acoustic ambiences where the winds catapult the hostile silences as the invisible roaring.Sylvain Lupari (January 28th, 2014)

mardi 28 janvier 2014

“Franz Kafka – The Castle continues where The Angel from the West Window had been stopped. A good album with a couple of great tracks on it”

1 Approaching Snowy Village 8:162 Odd Welcome 6:293 The Untouchable Castle 5:514 The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy 4:365 Barnabass the Messenger 7:426 Irredeemable Entity 7:517 The Implicit Will to Meet Klemm 7:098 Desperate Neverending Longing 7:339 Surrender and Adaption 7:1210 A Place of Mercy 6:09Eastgate 065CD (CD 68:48) ***½ (Dark atmospheric and theatrical with a zest of E-Rock)It's with the breezes of a very melancholic synth that "Approaching Snowy Village" unwinds the rather dark atmospheres of “Franz Kafka – The Castle”. The rhythm which hangs on to it is very delicate. Fighting into a mixture of bass sequences and electronic percussions, it takes little by little a pleasant velocity with more agile and translucent sequencer keys which skip and tumble into their shadows like in the years Poland or in the powerful rhythms of this series. An acoustic guitar offers a very meditative harmonic rhythm which whispers to the ears of breezes became now more strident ghost harmonies. They whistle over this rhythmic agitation, subdividing their tones at the beat of a rhythmic awakening finely drummed while that all softly "Approaching Snowy Village" embrace the gloomy ambiences of its opening. This last musical adventure of Tangerine Dream in the meanders of his series Sonic Poem Series is just as much perfumed by mysticism than the first 3 volumes of the series. We feel that the duet Froese and Quaeschning is well in the saddle and in known territories by plunging into darker atmospheres knitted in very beautiful arrangements and atmospheres deserving of a Dream who survived in all these years of transition.Set apart the very boiling "Odd Welcome", whose dashing rhythm wriggles on this meshing of sequences, electronic and manual percussions that became the mark of the contemporary electronic rhythms of the Dream, the rest of “Franz Kafka – The Castle” rests on beautiful gloomy theatrical ambiences which are as just melancholic as the melodies, like "The Untouchable Castle" which is a beautiful dark and sober ballad. The slow down tempo waddles dreamily under the caresses of a synth and of its singings so characteristically of Edgar and his Mellotron years. Nasal singings tinted of melancholy and iridescent breeze, flavored by voices and ethereal mist are transporting this delicate morphic rhythm in the hollows of our listening with a pleasant complicity. These synths to the harmonies clouded of mysticism are the core of the dark charms of "The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy" which is an intense ambiospherical track where the sound effects, the whispers and the tooting, made hoarse by musical filets as symphonic as apocalyptic, awaken souvenirs of The Keep and Legend. It's one of those tracks with a lot of ambiences offered by the gang of Froese since a very long time. These atmospheres and these hollow winds sneak until the introduction of "Barnabass the Messenger" where a keyboard spreads some fleeting chords which get lost in the echo of the winds became voices, like crumbs of bread taken away by the singings of a dark forest. A rhythm hatches out. He is curt and nervous. He sparkles with this meshing of sequences and electronic percussions which characterize the lively rhythms of the last years of TD. Edgar proposes beautiful and very passionate guitar solos of which the tears fade in this broth of agitated rhythm. "Irredeemable Entity" offers a nervous rhythm, worked on a fusion of keyboard and sequencers keys and of which the leaps forge little jerks, just like in "The Implicit Will to Meet Klemm". Both tracks offer a cute melody which is swaying in the sonic decoration and which is clinging to the ear rather fast. But if we listen carefully we hear these choirs of fed vampires humming absent airs. The ambiences are very rich and they caress the indecision of a rhythm which, if keeps its strength softens its depth. I like it but that stays in the field of simplicity. I still prefer the passionate furious "Odd Welcome" and its ride which flees a troop of gargoyles. The arrangements are surprising of realism and the sequencing is just delicious. "Surrender and Adaption" is a very dark track. A slow piece of music and a ballad for depressed with an acoustic guitar and its nostalgic notes which think on a pattern of rhythm fed by nervous manual percussions. The synth covers this dark of a wrapping cloud of melancholy which floats and floats...up until the arms of Morpheus. "A Place of Mercy" is as much darker. The rhythm is deliciously organic with pulsations which gurgle as much as they pound in a sonic environment which transports us to the banks of a swamp teeming of glaucous spectres. Notice the superb arrangements which draw in parallel a finely jerky structure of rhythm.Does the circle is completed? I'm asking because, without being bad, I have the vague feeling that “Franz Kafka – The Castle” is build around the remainders of the Sonic Poem Serie's first 3 opuses. It's good, nothing more. Set apart the very mesmerizing and mysterious "The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy", “Franz Kafka – The Castle” brings nothing really creative to this series built around black themes. There are good tracks, as there are also tracks which are lacking originality and which seem to be bringing out of The Island of the Fay and of TheAngel of the West Window sessions. Well, remark that it's not a default in itself. But I would have hoped for more. Maybe next time and as I said, it's good, nothing more.Sylvain Lupari (January 27th, 2013)

dimanche 26 janvier 2014

“Tout Devient La Musique is a striking ambiosonic album build around a sound fauna to make bleed the eardrums”

1 Flame of Earth 7:512 One Light Day from Home 6:423 Un Lieu où Tout Devient la Musique 6:014 Konradopulosuss 8:045 Amnesia 8:276 Time Travel 8:067 Year 2013 9:378 Year 2058 8:269 Tout Devient la Musique 12:2510 Fin de Siècle 5:40Bandcamp(DDL 81:18) **** (Ambient industrial landscapes)Somber breezes arise of the void, awakening metallic beatings of which the random knocks reverberate in an echo which wraps "Flame of Earth" of a surrealist ambient layer. There is rain on this earth of ambiences. As there is rain everywhere around “Tout Devient La Musique”. A rain where the crystalline drops burst out on the ground by crumbling. Their earthly rings are getting lost into white noises, illuminating the dance of interferences of which the crackling feeds the endemic blackness of a silence which roars of its invisible jaws while the iridescent rhythm of "Flame of Earth" shies away like a train fleeing the agony. “The noise is a curse to music, his unwanted child, rejected at the childbirth and returned to an unknown. Placed well, the noise becomes a coherent element of the musical space.” These words are from Marcin Melka and depict marvellously the sonic universe soaked of harmonious corrosivity from DigitalSimplyWorld. Just like The City Dark Synth, “Tout Devient La Musique” is a striking ambiosonic album which arm itself of fuzzy rhythms and of ghost melodies which get lost in a sound fauna to make bleed the eardrums. But once these ears accustomed to the sound-effects atmospheres of DigitalSimplyWorld; everything becomes music."One Light Day from Home" steals the same psybient ambiosonic pattern of the opening track. The ambiences are denser. Our ears confuse the drops of metallic greyness, the electrostatic breaths, the sounds of lost footsteps and the breaths of Minotaurs which float on a backcloth weaved by the breezes of a synth to the dark breaths. And this is the big difference between The City Dark Synth and “Tout Devient La Musique”.DigitalSimplyWorld knits an always intense and very thick sonic garden, except that he adds to it a touch of musicality with ectoplasmic harmonies, "Konradopulosuss", who hum on ambient abstract rhythms, such as in "Time Travel" or still "Fin de Siècle". "Un Lieu où Tout Devient la Musique" is particularly well made at this level. The vocal samplings sketch an aura of echo which undulates in a loop, forging a delicate rhythm which rolls in a universe of paranoid whispers. Rather disturbing! "Amnesia"? Well the title says it all. It's an intense ambient phase where all the breaths of the black souls weave a slow cerebral flight. I like these disturbing voices towards the finale, just as the organic fauna which stimulates the listening of the very ambiospherical "Year 2013" where the knockings of a train running on wooden rails forge a strange monophasic rhythm. "Year 2058" is more intense, even apocalyptic. The title-track is simply superb. DigitalSimplyWorld lists all of his sonic palette and assembles it in a very beautiful mosaic where the noises form some ill-assorted harmonies which hum on rhythms as abstract as ambient. We easily imagine ourselves being in a grotto, as in a big deserted downtown or still in a mythical forest where the line between the sensation to be between two universes is more than tangible. This last parallel reflects the entire dimension “Tout Devient La Musique”; an album where the noises resuscitate the rhythms and harmonies abandoned in their angers of having been ignored since the beginning of times.Sylvain Lupari (January 26th, 2013)

vendredi 24 janvier 2014

“What we have here is a truly masterpiece of contemporary EM and the cradle of orchestral EM”

1 Heaven and Hell Part I 21:58BacchanaleSymphony to the Powers B (Movements 1 and 2) Movement 3 So Long Ago, So Clear2 Heaven and Hell Part II 21:16Intestinal Bat Needles and Bones 12 O'Clock Aries A Way Esoteric Recordings ‎– ECLEC 2421(CD 43:14) *****(Symphonic and cinematographic EM)Slow apocalyptic breezes coming from a nasal synth open the abysses of "Heaven and Hell Part I". Five years after Sex Power, Vangelis affixes a musical signature which will be unique only to him with an orchestral approach very near the ambiences of movies where the synths get cover of symphonicity to the colors of iridescent metal and the choirs borrow chthonian Gregorian ambiences. Album of a genius to become, “Heaven and Hell” cuts out the career of Vangelis Papathanassiou who abandons his suit of folk hermit or Bohemian rocker for an even more mystical character. Recently reedited by the Cherry Red label, “Heaven and Hell” is also the album of confusion for the growing fans of the Vangelis phenomenon. The Greek self-taught multi-instrumentalist rushes headlong into the battles of astonishing symphonic structures where the darkness are constantly harassed by angelic dawn serenades.After these slow breaths of Jericho, "Heaven and Hell Part I" goes to debacle with an unbridled rhythm. Knocks of percussions set ablaze the rage of the first movement which topples over towards anarchy with sudden kicks which carry a sonic duel between philharmonic synths, harmonious ringings and Gregorian choirs of which the somber celestial harmonies run on loop over the warning shots of the percussions. This sonic frenzy attaches its passion at the second movement where Vangelis hammers an austere pace with gloomy chords which unfold a minimalist baroque melody. Follows then a delicate piano of which the melody has difficulty to penetrate this opaque Dantesque approach which gets support by the English Chamber Choir. The melody of "Symphony to the Powers B" is as frivolous and grave, embracing angelic structures as more restless passages. It's a brief opera where the sky sets ablaze hell and among which the fine notes of piano which dance with bells bring us towards the firsts outlines of Chariots of Fire; an album which will see the light of day some 6 years later. And we arrive to the soft "Movement 3" and its piano which makes dream its notes in bluish mists and singing breezes. This delicate lunar melody will find a buyer as music to the Cosmos documentary in 1980 and leads us towards the splendid and very soft "So Long Ago, So Clear"; an electronic melody which will become the cradle of the New Age and where Jon Anderson enchants with his so ethereal singing. In fact this finale reminds me that of Yes' Relayer where a fascinating celestial quietude followed the wild madness of Gates of Delirium. There is a small parallel to be made between both works.A very sinister ambience opens "Heaven and Hell Part II". Hollow winds blow on percussions and atonal bass pulsations, shaping a dark mood where every breath feeds the fright of the bats of which the flight of the thick cloud melts to the meshing of percussions and heterogeneous tones which get lost in the interstice of time in order to join the fascinating oriental melody of "Needles and Bones". The play of the bass which stems the tide of agile metallic arpeggios is superb and the melody which sparkles under an immense pattern of synth carillons is just as much. And then we fall in pure magic. The movement of "12 O' Clock" bickers constantly between the beauty and the beast, the consistency and the anarchy, the sky and hell. Absent choruses hum under a sky covered of apocalyptic thunders. We hear a voice of oracle to neigh there, while other more virginal voices whisper to the ears of the gods a melody torn between calm and storm. The percussions make kicks and upset the order of quietude while that "12 O' Clock" adopts the bipolarity of "Bacchanal". Far away, we hear a melody taking shape. Except that the chaos regurgitates its roars. There is no rhythm. Just bits of rhythm which burst and which get lost in an intense sound mosaic where the immoderation is amplified by the presence of a virtual symphony orchestra. Vangelis is the master of his “Heaven and Hell” and of his passion for chaos. Then finally come the first sunny spells of "12 O' Clock" by the wonderful voice of Vana Veroutis who calms all torments and all tormented minds. Sublimate! And those who hear a phantom of Ennio Morricone … There is a little of truth. "Aries" bursts between our ears like an electronic fanfare. The lines of Albedo 0.39's Pulsar are drawn there. And this splendid “Heaven and Hell” ends in a lunar ode. With "A Way" and its arpeggios of glasses which fall and sing like tears of joy on cheek wrinkled by happiness. These tears flow upward, singing with stars in a musical aurora borealis from which the melancholic delicacy will follow the dreams of Vangelis for years to come.With its mega orchestral impulses, its choirs with aromas divided between black and white, its melodies sewn by thread of Orion and kicks of disjointed rhythms; “Heaven and Hell” is a real slap to the ear. The album is still hard-hitting in 2014, so imagine in 1975! It's the cornerstone of Vangelis' career and it will serve as basis and as influences for so important albums such as Albedo 0.39, China, Chariots of Fire and even Blade Runner. The rhythms are heavy, the ambiences are powerful and melodies are celestial. The musicality and the production are so intense that a lot of digital transfers have suffered from it. So there were a lot of bad sounding CD. And it's aptly corrected in 2013 with a superb remastering made by Vangelis himself. This edition of Esoteric Recordings is without defect. No limitations of the sources or distortions of sounds which are rather explosive thank you. The sound is as much excellent as the Japanese pressing of 1990 and the CD comes with a nice booklet which doesn't say much but which is pleasant to look. Here we have a masterpiece of contemporary EM!Sylvain Lupari (January 22nd, 2013)

jeudi 23 janvier 2014

Doing a countdown best albums is rather difficult. I think that this way of doing things is outdated and may be interpreted on the wrong way by many artists, fans and columnists. But I've been asked all the time ''what are my best albums of the year?''. So here is a list of the best albums in 2013, according to my tastes and to the reactions gathered here and there. 2013 is a year where I listened to mostly 250 albums and I wrote about 230 reviews. The choice is huge but I'll try to be consistent with my opinions. The list is split in 3 categories, if needed:-Berlin School and progressive styles of EM-Dark ambient Music-Best newcomers of the yearAnd remember: I'M NOT GOD!Best albums Berlin School and progressive styles1 Pyramid PeakAnatomyYou can taste a bit of it here:Iceland2 Bernd Kistenmacher Utopia3 MoonSatellite Low Life4 Klaus Schulze Shadowlands5 Steve Roach Live Transmission - From the Drone Zone at Soma FM6 Axess Aviator7 Ian Boddy Liverdelphia8 Johan Tronestam Roots and Legends from the North9 E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr Kometenbahn10 Bertrand Loreau et Olivier Briand Interferences11 Steve Roach At the Edge of Everything12 Paul Lawler OpusBest Newcomers in 2013Beyond Berlin Music for Cosmic NightsE-Tiefengrund Voltige SessionsBest Dark Ambient albumsIan Boddy SepulchreShane Morris and MystifiedEmergence

1 I Remain Part One 3:48 2 I Remain Part Two 6:573 I Remain Part Three 4:59 4 I Remain Part Four 9:42 5 I Remain Part Five 1:40 6 I Remain Part Six 3:07 7 I Remain Part Seven 2:20 8 I Remain Part Eight 1:15 9 I Remain Part Nine 8:09A-Frame Media | A-Frame 12(DDL/CD-r 41:57)***** (Ambient EM)We know when an album will leave an indelible track on the soul. From the first listening, we feel spellbound and subtly captivated. Sounds! Sounds that go out in loops! Loops that size up, crisscross, overlap and entangled themselves in a latent and delicate musical maelstrom where fine strata of a melancholic synth and keyboard keys a bit misled sail with choirs, as cosmic as dreamlike, in a superb spatial crescendo. If the first listening seduces, the second enthralls and the third confirms that we will listen again and again this stunning symphony of stars segmented in 9 parts, but merge into one cosmic ode, that floods our cortex of a serene and pacifying soft balm.

A fine quixotic shower spreads out its droplets over the wings of a synth with swerving and melancholic slow strata. A beautiful synth line waves among remote refineries explosions, misled riffs and choirs which wander in harmony with a sparkling of arpeggios glittering below reflections of an astral light, such as dreamlike loops parading through stars. In spite of the movement’s sweetness from which waltzes scatter flutes, we already feel this dramatic crescendo that floats all around “I Remain”. "Part II" continues this soft dance of sparkling jangles under magnificent fragrances of a synth to oblong strata of which sounds cross time. The movement is sober, but charmingly hypnotic with its synth layers which embrace such as specters of a love lost in a magnificent dance of stars which tinkles around forsaken choirs and strange breaths coming out from a metal flute. This strange ball of light continues with the poetic "Part III" where the oblivion cosmic, or terrestrial, is being filling with delicate synth lines filled of cosmic dusts. Fine loops are forming, embracing this quietude phase where soft oscillations flourish among these celestial choruses and a fine line of bass which shapes the first rhythmic presence of “I Remain”. A line of bass which is spinning in crescendo and spiral towards the door of morphic goddesses. And then, "Part IV" the first sublimity! Since the beginning of “I Remain” we feel a latent rhythmic life imprisoned beneath the weight of heavy loops to paradoxical crossings. A somber and dramatic life which overflows here. But a complex rhythmic life, livened up by increasing rhythms. A unique crescendo consisted of droning loops and rolling percussions leading us towards a magnificent spatial bolero.

With a delicate cymbal which supports the loops movement that collide a synth fills of so always opaque layers, the rhythm is gaining timidly his assurance with a slightly syncopated approach and a heavy bass-drum pulsation. A fabulous dance of crystalline arpeggios follows. A lascivious astral dance which espouses slow morphic strata of a synth always so sad, freeing its small shimmering serpentines that cross the paths of “I Remain”, such as analogical sensors. Tempo found, “I Remain” continues its galactic procession with a strange military march supported by a synth to harbingers layers. Second sublimity; "Part VI"! With its strikes of percussions which adopts the dramatic march imposed by a sober synth with heavy oscillations, shaping a stunning paradox between the rhythm and the non-rhythm. A hitch dance which reaches a violent cortex paroxysm towards its finale. A finale of which warm ashes illuminate darkness pierced by the song of astral sirens, while quite delicately a piano cries its arpeggios beneath the fine rain of dried up clouds. A sublime musical world which defends its beauty, its tenderness and its delicacy with the so touching "Part VIII" and its melancholic piano which pierces the bitterness of cosmic choirs to ends towards the last sublimity of “I Remain”; "I Remain Part IX" who closes with a tremendous mellotron surge where strings waltz with our pain and where angels wind around this astral virginal. Oh… how much it is beautiful! Oh… how much this story at first so mat became the accomplice of my solitude! “I Remain”. Up, as sit, I remain stunned in front of so much synth beauty. Hat up to you Andy Condon, you remain the very last artist that touched me so deeply with such an impact with your imagination.Sylvain Lupari (November 10th, 2010)Cet article est disponible en Français sur le site de Guts of Darkness, dont je suis chroniqueur sous le nom de Phaedream; http://www.gutsofdarkness.com/god/objet.php?objet=13597

mardi 21 janvier 2014

“The Long Night is an ambient musical journey in the night heart where the sleep bickers with its misty guest and their premonitory fights”

1 Last Light 10:522 Season of Nights 10:163 The Deep Hours 12:254 Calm World 13:065 The Long Night 14:09Projekt Records | PRO297(CD/DDL 60:52) ****(Ambiospherical EM)In spite of all these albums where the apathetic winds sing on plains deserted by reliefs, the music of Steve Roach continues to seduce always as much as she calms. Composed with Kelly David, to whom we owe Broken Voyage, “The Long Night” is an ambio-morphic ode for a long night when torments harass the rights for a sleep. A long night skillfully sculptured by some slow and captivating synth breezes of which the soothing breaths are confronted with the rebels of the insomnia.And that begins with the hollow breaths which recall of the "Last Light". The intro is relaxing with lines of synth which heap up such as a somber musical thick cloud pierced by fine chords which float like harmonies worn-out and lost in a dense sonic envelope which moves with the slowness of its opacity. The movement is familiar. Slow it floats with its duality between serenity and anxiety. If at times everything is quiet, we feel a threat soaked of tragedies which announce that the desired quietude will soon be perturbed by the guards of the awakening. And this is this impression which gets loose from the first night-waves of "Season of Nights". If the movement always stays without beatings, we feel the hand of a trap which threatens the dreams to come with darker synth lines which, if wrap the movement of an intense sluggish sound mosaic, sneaks between the phases of the NREM sleep and REM sleep. Like black dreams, these lines infiltrate the confusion with sonic upheavals deserving of a storm that only dreams can foment inside the sleep. After this disturbing ambiosonic phase, the slow tribal rhythms of "The Deep Hours" go deeper into the anxiety with an ambient rhythm which magnetizes the howling winds. "Calm World" is as calmer as its naming and brings us back to the peace of mind abandoned by "Season of Nights". Its second part offers an attractive paradisiacal approach with a charming sound universe where the carillons sing in a shower of prism. This is some great Steve Roach here who concludes his journey through the meanders of night tormented by a quietude desired and found in the winds of the serenity which lulls title-track.Steve Roach won't reinvent his style. His musical signature can vary between his long monuments of meditation and his structures fed by rhythmic disturbances, but it remains always unique… And it's the same thing when he collaborates with another artist. This being written, “The Long Night” respects the ambient territories drawn by Steve Roach and the darker approaches, even dramatic, imagined by Kelly David. It's a journey in the night heart where the sleep bickers with its misty guest and their premonitory fights. It's pure candy for fans of deep ambiances which bicker between the serenity and its duality.Sylvain Lupari (January 21st, 2014)

lundi 20 janvier 2014

“Built upon a bed of an atypical percussions pattern, Kola is difficult to tame for sure and is as fluid as a water oxygenated by million sonic bubbles”

1 Pinata 6:132 Polyglot 5:243 Omara 4:314 Maniok 7:325 Habitat 7:366 Petroleum 5:417 Diaspora 10:07Iapetus Store(DDL/CD 47:08) ***½(Experimental tribe EM)The rhythm is brisk and nervous. Fed of an alloy of percussions with varied tones and jerky breaths a bit fluty, "Pinata" bursts between our ears like some overheated pop-corn in a microwave. These percussions have the fever of a fascinating tribal dance with a suite of quick movements which dance like gurus in trance with a bass line and its organic snores. Welcome to the surprising world of percussions to the eclectic tones of “Kola”. You remember the dishevelled rhythms Centrozoon's last album, Boner? Well, Tobias Reber was part of it. Except for the structures of rhythms built on a range of percussions with tones as much ill-assorted as shining, “Kola” has nothing in common with Boner ...well, set apart "Pinata". Even if Tobias Reber brings in it his arsenal of electronic programming which has made the sonic oddness of Boner, “Kola” breathes of a strange quietude in troubled waters. Here, everything is subject to interpretation. Because this last Tobias Reber's solo album is lulled by rhythms with figures as much abstract as the melodies can be evasive. Indomitable rhythms which sparkle and burst in a wild an amazing fauna of percussions of which the diverse heterogeneous tones bicker on a background music which seems to have been extracted out of the labyrinths of an unexplored jungle. If "Pinata" offers mostly a structure of unbridled rhythm, the rest of “Kola” lies on rather ambient rhythms with percussions which sparkle in all directions, such as bottles which collide in a quite small pond of water seized with opposite halieutic currents. It's the waltz of knockings on a sonic background where the improvisation of the harmonies fits very well with their uncertainties, like in "Polyglot" and "Diaspora" where the multiple and gluttonous knock of xylophone wriggle such as an iguana on ardent shards. We would believe to hear the rhythmic skeleton, including the bass, of King Crimson which looks for his suit. It's rather special and quite unique. We have the impression that there is a form of life which gurgles all along these evasive and organic rhythms which jump like balls with triangular outlines. The portion of guitar, in particular on "Omara" and on the heavy but fleeing "Petroleum", sounds like Markus Reuter and roots the perception to hear King Crimson to the very experimental state. Anti-music? We are not really far from this. Rich in percussions stuffed with eclectic tones and with bass chords with organic pulsations, “Kola” is swarming of an atypical rhythmic universe. Let's take "Maniok" and "Habitat" where the rhythms stay of ambiences with percussions which beat an unreal measure beneath the multiple anemic shouts of bat.In brief, this last album of Tobias Reber is a sonic experience for ears gourmand of a musical extravaganza where the borders always remain to define. This is rhythm without skin, or almost. Skeletons of rhythms where the bones of glasses sing more than the harmonies enchant. An album difficult to tame but not deprived of interest that will please undoubtedly to fans where the chaos of Art Zoyd and/or Univers Zero is as fluid as a water oxygenated by million sonic bubbles.Sylvain Lupari (January 20th, 2013)

Members of this Blog

Qui suis-je

Bonjour!
My name is Sylvain Lupari from Joliette in Quebec (Canada). I’m known as Phaedream all over the Internet since the beginning of 2000 where I started to write reviews. In 2005, I joined the French Webzine Guts of Darkness and on August 2010 I created a Blog, Synth & Sequences, which has reached the point of 1 000,000 visitors on February 2017 where I also wrote my 1354th review. In French and in English, I wrote more than reviews of EM albums.
This Blog is a huge success and reference about the music which sets my mind free over the years. Too many chronicles, so I have to split this Blog in several sections. Robert Schroeder is the first to welcome my thoughts on Webpress.
So, welcome to this part of my Blog Synth&Sequences which is devoted to the music, the tones and sounds of Aachen’s own Robert Schroeder.
Here you will find informations about his career and discography and latest news as well as deep reviews about his music, his albums.
My only wish is to guide you through his impressive career and may I suggest to visit regularly my Blog Synth & Sequences for more updates on EM.